A glimpse into the life of a poker player/poker website owner/and poker author.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Poker Wonks and the ITH convention

Welcome to my blog. I've been wanting to do a blog for quite some time but was waiting for the official launch of our new poker blog site, http://www.pokerwonks.com/. It took much longer than expected to launch delaying my own poker blog but we are now ready to launch.

Poker Wonks is a place for poker bloggers to find a wider audience. Anyone who writes a poker blog is invited to join and we hope to have the best, most comprehensive listing of poker blogs on the net. And to join the fun, this is the first post of my own blog.

I just got back from our annual ITH convention. This is the third year of our convention and it was blast as always. This year we went to Atlantic City for a change of pace and had Members come from as far away as California, Norway, and Sweden. For those who don't know, ITH is the more common name for my poker strategy site, http://www.internettexasholdem.com/. ITH features a great forum to discuss poker with other players and the convention each year is a great way for us to associate faces with Member names.

In any case, the convention this year got off to a great start. We had a cocktail party on Thursday at 7:00. Unfortunately I arrived a little late as I had quite a hectic day of travel missing my original flight, having my car break down on the way to my second flight, sitting through a weather delay on the runway for over an hour, and then finally getting pulled over for speeding on the way from Philadelphia to AC. I've been pulled over about 10 times in my lifetime and this was the first where the cop symphasized with me and only gave me a warning!

The drinks were already flowing by the time I arrived. Some of the Members I met for the first time included Janeg, Wynton, Rocketplayer, Mxrider, Sami, and Wade. And of course we had a lot of the regulars from previous conventions.

Several of us decided to play the midnight madness tournament. $50 entry fee starts at 12:12, 12K stack, and 12 minutes blind levels. I played until 5:00 in the morning finishing 13th for a $92 payday! For $8 an hour I ruined all the rest that I was hoping to have to start off the convention! Nsidestrate also cashed so we both got off to good starts.

Friday morning we had our "seminar". This year featured a Q&A session with Ed Miller, author of 4 poker books. The session went really great. Ed is very personable and quite articulate and I think everyone joined the session. Ed did most of the talking but it really became more like a roundtable session as everyone joined in with their own ideas.

Bullajami won the first event Friday afternoon which was the limit event. That night Wade took down the NL event. Only having a few hours sleep, I decided to hit the sack so I would be rested for Saturday festivities; unfortunately, I missed the annual ITH drunk-fest game. Three stories quickly spread about the game the next day.

1/ Suitedpair led the drunkedness part of the game and the cocktail waitresses couldn't keep the drinks coming fast enough.2/ Ed Miller lost his first rack of chips and then disappeared for a few minutes, only to return with 4 racks of white chips announcing, "Now I am properly bankrolled for this game!" [they were only playing $2-$4 which is indicative of the action in the game]3/ Ed calls for the Qc on the turn, only to see it hit to the amazement of everyone - and then Ed folds the river!

I was thinking this game would go on Saturday night but evidently everyone was too exhausted for it a second night in a row.

On Saturday, Bugsbunny won the limit event. Ed cashed and donated his winnings to Colombianitos (http://www.colombianitos.org/), a charity that my wife and I support and serve on their board of directors. Thanks Ed!

Wynton won the main event with Janeg finishing runner-up. Congrats to both!

Saturday night I decided to play midnight madness again with a few others since the ITH drunk-fest game wasn't running. Unfortunately I busted out early losing KK to AA. Ammbo went on the win the thing in a 4-way deal where he netted $3400! Congrats!

Overall a great weekend and I think everyone had a great time. It amazes me how people from all walks of life can come together once a year and act as if we had known each other for years. I am really proud of the community we have built at ITH and the convention each year just shows what a great bunch of people we have who frequent the boards.

Thanks everyone for a great time and a big thanks for Tanya Peck for coordinating another great convention!